The Male Gaze in Hitchcock’s Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo is the prime example of portraying the male gaze. Laura Mulvey’s theory argues that women are portrayed in film as objects from the male point of view and are merely there to catalyze the story instead of being seen as the subject. She argues that women are used solely for the pleasure of the male viewer. Mulvey states that the woman who is on screen is “displayed on two levels: as an erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as an erotic object for the spectator with an auditorium with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.” This idea of the male gaze has been portrayed as a large problem throughout the history of film, not only in the Classical Hollywood era, but it is also obvious in modern film. Mulvey creates an important argument that nearly every movie guilty of the male gaze. It is so deeply embedded in the minds of every one that a movie cannot be viewed as “pleasurable” if it does not contain aspects of this theory.

The male gaze not only applies to Vertigo, but it also seems to merge into the story’s plotline. In the movie, the main character, Scottie, is hired by his old college roommate to watch his wife, Madeleine. Through this process of watching, Scottie becomes obsessed with Madeleine solely based off of her appearance and idealizes her in his mind as the “ideal woman.” This is only solidified when Scottie sees Judy on the street and stops her because of her striking appearance to Madeleine. Scottie then becomes obsessed with transforming Judy into Madeleine because he becomes fixated in a quest to create his ideal woman. Not only does Scottie not speak to Madeleine for the majority of the first half of the movie, but he literally is not satisfied with his relationship with Judy until she is fully transformed into the object of his fetish. Madeleine’s appearance alone is what attracts her to Scottie and this builds a sexual view of her not only as an “erotic object to the character,” but also to the male audience that is viewing it as well.

Mulvey also discusses the difference between a voyeuristic view and a fetishistic view. We can see both of these gazes from the point of view of Scottie in the film. Voyeurism is described as “the pleasure that comes from watching others and in turn transforming them into objects of sexual stimulation or desire. Fetishistic viewing is “the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. This builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself.” Initially, Scottie’s view of Madeleine is voyeuristic. Scottie watches Madeleine from a distance and finds pleasure in this and we are only shown Madeleine through the perspective of Scottie and his gaze upon her. When Madeleine commits suicide and Scottie sees Judy on the street for her resemblance to Madeleine, he finds satisfaction and pleasure in creating Judy as Madeleine. He finds pleasure in dressing her up like a literal doll and is attracted to her because of his ability to create a resemblance with his ideal woman. This is the fetishistic view through Scottie’s gaze. This in turn, also eases his guilt over not being able to stop Madeleine’s suicide and he thinks if he can go back and recreate it, it might fix him. Again, Scottie uses these two views of the women for his own gain. He is literally using Judy as an object for his own pleasure and hopes to fix himself. This only reinforces the aspects of Mulvey’s theory that women in film are used only to propel the plot and typically aren’t used as the subjects of the film. This is extremely apparent here because Scottie uses these women, especially Judy, as sexual objects for his own gain.

Another aspect of Mulvey’s theory that is clearly depicted in Vertigo is the passive female role. As I’ve already touched on, the female characters in Vertigo are placed solely to support the male protagonist, which is Scottie. We are only shown Madeleine and Judy (even though they are the same person, they are for the majority of the movie portrayed as two separate people) through the point of view of Scottie. All of their actions are also particularly placed to cause Scottie to act or feel a certain way. Judy and Madeleine are only portrayed as what Scottie thinks of them and are inherently passive throughout the entire film. It can also be argued that Midge and Judy only see themselves through the eyes of Scottie. Midge tries to style herself in a way that will please Scottie, she even paints herself as Carlotta to try to win Scottie over. We are shown as she becomes angry with herself for trying which could be mistaken as avoiding the male gaze, but Midge never acts on her feelings to change anything. This makes her passive. She acts to try to gain the approval of Scottie and when she fails, it upsets her. Scottie tries to mold Judy into Madeleine, but Judy also allows Scottie to mold her into Madeleine. She is seen as someone who is only meant to help Scottie, she literally says she will do anything for him despite herself because she loves him and he treats her as so. Both Judy and Midge try to do things to gain the approval of Scottie, which could go as far to validate that the only way to affirm their worth is through the eyes of Scottie.

Through the male gaze, women in this film are also viewed through the perspective as the damsel in distress. This view is created through the eyes of Scottie and Madeleine’s husband. Madeleine is perceived as a woman in need of saving and she cannot save herself. She is significantly sexualized through this and the male gaze reinforces the support she needs from the male characters in the film. When we find out that Judy was actually an accomplice to the murder of Madeleine, she becomes sort of an evil character in the film. This is the perspective that the audience is shown through the view of Scottie. He goes from fetishizing her to thinking of her as evil and the audience’s view sways with it.

It is easiest to apply the male gaze to Vertigo because of the way the male gaze becomes a major part of the film’s plot and story. This is important because it goes to show how deeply pleasure from the male gaze has embedded itself into our minds. This movie shows as a perfect example for what the male gaze looks like and how it can be seen as a major problem. It’s not only seen as a major problem in Classical Hollywood, but in Modern cinema today and it is an almost impossible task to try to avoid it. In Vertigo, the women are extremely sexualized through the gaze of the male and even by the shots and angles, which make the woman seem as erotic as possible for the pleasure of the male characters and the audience. Although it is a seemingly impossible task to overcome the oppression of women in film via Mulvey’s theory, and whether one agrees with the theory or not, it provides something to think about and observe how the male gaze and the oppression of women in film transcends the screen and into our every day lives.